I got the price down to less than 75 CN dollars after about 15 minutes research on eBay, including a balance charger and mid range LiPo battery specified (but I already have those last two and an old heatsink which takes 35 CN dollars off the cost so components cost around 40 CN dollars or about 30 US dollars). I don't call that too expensive

not if you get the bits from China via eBay rather than Amazon - much cheaper - and most of us have the odd LiPo and charger around to use with drones and other stuff.